h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's a problem with the water in Dublin. Much of the city's water comes from a huge reservoir in County Wicklow, and is treated at the treatment plant in Ballymore Eustace before before being piped to the city.

For reasons which nobody understands, the composition of the water coming into the reservoir has changed, and slower techniques now have to be used to treat it, so they can't keep up with demand. They're turning off the water for about 8 hours every day.

Normally we run our washing machine and dish washer at night to make use of the cheap electricity. But we can't do that at the moment, because there's no water. It's amazing how a little thing like this can upset your routine.

I've also found that the water in the tap smells more of chemicals than normal. Dublin water is pretty drinkable, but it has a slight chlorine whiff off it. We normally filter it before drinking, through a little filter tap beside the sink, but that broke last week and the new one is on order. Bad timing.

Still, the new filter will arrive soon, and I'm sure the water engineers will figure out new ways to treat the water and get back up to speed.

In other water-related news, I intend to drive to Wexford tomorrow (a 2-hour drive each way) to drain the water from our mobile home. We won't be using it now until spring, so it is safest to drain it. Wexford is very mild and doesn't normally get below zero in the winter (we're only a mile from sea), but there have been a few bad winters recently, and I got four separate leaks one year, even after having drained the system. Obviously whatever way the pipes lay, the water was sitting in them and then froze. After that, I put a few extra drainage taps in, and it should be OK now. There are lots of lovely places to eat in Wexford, so Mrs G will come along and we can have a nice lunch together.

Water shortage in Ireland?? Now that is something I never expected to hear. It's the end of days I tells ya.

Deb

Well, if Pebble has dared, then I will too:
Maybe you could just put the laundry in a bucket and stick it outside, there should be plenty of water there.
Problem solved.
(NB: we have the same kind of weather here anyway).


(I had never heard of spiky ceilings before, so I shall keep my eyes open in the future. ).

What brings water to the reservoir, a river?

I can't stand to drink "city water" on account of the chemicals, and have trained the staff to make my tea with bottled water.

Yes, the reservoir is entirely fed by rivers that flow down from the mountains. But for reasons unknown, there's more silt in the water. They're blaming it on the unusually warm dry summer.

I hope you don't mind, I don't always have time to comment, or anything to say, so I'm going to to show I have read the latest part

Yes I heard the Dublin delegates at the dance conference discussing " the wrong sort of water" . How trying!

" the wrong sort of water"

That's the sort without a whisky in it?

Best of, to just play safe... and drink only beer or stout

So there is something in the silt that has, in a mild sense, poisoned the reservoir. Fascinating.

I've a few things to talk about today, so I'm faced with a dilemma. Should I tell you about all of them, and risk there being nothing to talk about some other day, or should I save them up and pretend they happened later in the month?

Not really a dilemma, as I've never been stuck for something to talk about yet. So here goes...

I was planning to go to Wexford today to drain the water system in my mobile home in preparation for the winter, but the weather forecast for Dublin was lovely, while Wexford had non-stop rain, so I called the journey off. I'll do it some other day.

Last night, I cooked something I'd never done before: colcannon. This traditional Irish dish is the standard fare for Halloween and for the first few weeks of November, as it uses kale which is in season at the moment. It's basically mashed potato, boiled kale (a type of cabbage) and scallions (spring onions) or leeks all mushed up together in milk and butter. It serves as both the potato and the vegetable in a "meat and two veg" meal. I think I put too much milk into it, as it was very gooey, but still delicious.

Daughter El now conducts the Trinity College Chapel Choir. They sing at Evensong on Thursdays, and the Anglican Communion Service on Sundays. Mrs G and I went in to Dublin and attended the Anglican Communion Service to hear the choir sing. I'm an Atheist, but daughter El is a Christian of some sort, although she certainly wasn't brought up an Anglican (Anglican is Church of Ireland / England; for any Americans reading, it's probably closest to Episcopalian - a very mild form of Protestantism). The service was beautiful - they used the Mass setting by Darke. We didn't stay for the sherry afterwards.

In the afternoon, I moved most of our stuff back into our bedroom after our redecoration work. I still need to do a little work on the built-in wardrobe, but we'll be able to sleep in our own bed tonight. The memory foam mattress in the spare room was odd - very comfortable, but rather warm. It will be nice to get back to a normal sprung mattress.

Not too busy for the next week: the usual choir rehearsals on Monday and Thursday; that's about it.

You just serve the mash/kale mix on its own, or with meat?

I love colcannon - I really must introduce the Gruesome Twosome to it soon.

Interesting about the memory foam mattress, I must ask around if other people found them warm. I've been considering getting one but the warmth thing will be a deal breaker for me.

Other than the warmth, I found the memory foam mattress extremely comfortable.

I served the colcannon as the veg and potato with fish as the "meat". Mrs G is a semi-vegetarian who eats fish.

First frost!

It was lovely to look out and see the tracery of frost on the lawn and the patterns of ice on the windscreen of the car. By the time I was walking to the tram, the sun was up and the horizontal sunlight in the clear blue sky made everything bright and full of promise.

The tram was packed - I couldn't read my free newspaper, as I couldn't lift my arm from my side where it was pinned by the mass of humanity. But the tram ride is only 12 minutes, then I have a pleasant walk along the canal to work.

Sadly, there are very few waterbirds on the canal this year. Most of them were killed off by last winter's very long cold winter, and when spring finally arrived, the few remaining ones appear to not have believed it and never made any nests or raised any families. Where there used to be many families of ducks and coots, there are now none.

Mind you, further up the canal, the swans are thriving. They all gang together on one stretch and there appear to be about 50 of them.

This evening we have my small choir's first rehearsal for Evensong, which we will be performing (if that's the right word) in St Patrick's Cathedral in December. I've never been to Evensong, so I don't know what to expect.

Tomorrow I'll be busy as daughter El is receiving her degree from the University. In any other college this would be called a "graduation", but Trinity has different names for everything - it is a "commencement". That'll take up most of the day, so it may be quite late before I post tomorrow's journal.

It's not very cold here, but grey and cloudy and rainy.
Pity, I'd rather be cold than wet any day.

No idea what its actually* like outside,here, (yet). But, wow... standing in my kitchen this morning, or in my bedroom, with the curtains drawn back, we've got a gorgeous warm sun out there almost actually feels too* hot if I stand by the window for too long with it coming through

If it is reflected by a nice day, outside, I think a walk by the river may be in order today making the most of the sun whilst we've not yet sunk into the freezing cold of winter

Don't think I've ever had kaile so I'm another one who may have to steal that dish and try it some time, with fish sounds a good mix to me too

Since it was the first time I'd cooked colcannon, I think I'll have to make it a few more times before I feel able to put a recipe into the Guide.